


Make It Better

by LearnedFoot



Series: Peter/Tony Ficlets and Drabbles [12]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Ficlet, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-10-30 01:15:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20806088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LearnedFoot/pseuds/LearnedFoot
Summary: 5 times Peter couldn't really help when Tony was hurt, and one time he did.





	Make It Better

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "100 words of hurt mentors," and originally posted [here](https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/390477.html?thread=2296491597#cmt2). This is a cleaned up version. Just a small, quick thing I wrote as a break while working on some somewhat longer projects.

1.

The first time Peter meets him, Mr. Stark is already injured, deep bruise around one eye marring his otherwise beyond-perfect face. (Seriously, he’s somehow even more startlingly handsome in person. It’s almost hard to believe and it’s _definitely _a little hard to breathe around him.)  
  
Peter asks about it—the black eye, not how he manages to look so good even with it—when Mr. Stark drops by his hotel room (Tony Stark! In _his_ room! Again!) to explain what they’re doing in Germany. For a moment, Mr. Stark’s face flickers with something other than the easy cheeriness he’s been projecting. But it’s only a moment, so brief Peter thinks he imagined it.  
  
“It’s all part of the gig, kid,” he says, squeezing Peter’s shoulder, making his heart race. “No big deal. You get used to it.”  
  
Later, when he’s holding an ice pack to his own face and wishing his healing powers worked a little faster, Peter wonders if Mr. Stark really has gotten used to this. It doesn’t seem possible.

  
  
2.

Mr. Stark occasionally gives Peter instructions about lab safety during the weekly sessions they arrange after Peter turns down the Avengers gig. Key word: _occasionally_. The half-hearted lectures come out in bursts, as if he randomly remembers he’s supposed to be mentoring Peter, not treating him like a slightly less educated peer. That’s what he does most of the time: bouncing ideas and asking for help with difficult construction problems as if Peter has any idea what he’s doing.  
  
Peter listens attentively to the lectures, because he really does want to know the proper procedures, but it’s hard to take Mr. Stark’s stern warnings seriously when he goes right back to breaking his own rules within a few minutes.  
  
That is, until the day Mr. Stark doesn’t brace part of the gauntlet he’s working on correctly. Peter’s on the other side of the lab when he hears a yell, the clatter of metal hitting the floor, cursing. He crosses the large space in a few bounds to find Mr. Stark already pressing the button-down he’d discarded earlier—stripping to a flimsy undershirt that makes Peter blush—to his arm. Blood smears down to his wrist.  
  
“Mr. Stark! Can I help?” Peter asks, scrambling in his memory for where the First Aid kit is supposed to be. One of the cabinets, but which one?  
  
Mr. Stark waves him off. “It’s fine, everything’s under control.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“Seriously kid,” Mr. Stark snaps in a tone that doesn’t leave room for argument, “I don’t need your help.” He staggers to his feet and makes his way to the exit. “I’m going to get cleaned up. Consider this a lesson in doing as I say, not as I do. Valuable learning experience, all that.” He waves around the lab. “This is your first test. Stay, play. Don’t kill yourself before I get back.”  
  
Peter does stay, but he sticks to sketching on a StarkPad, listless, feeling a bit like the real lesson of the day is that even if he sometimes treats Peter as an equal, Mr. Stark definitely doesn’t actually see him that way.

3.

Some injuries aren’t fixable. As Peter sobs, babbling nonsense about winning, clutching at Mr. Stark’s body, he knows: this time, there’s nothing he can do to help.

  
4.

Peter can’t stop staring. It’s him, really him, there in a hospital bed. His face is ashen, grey, as if some of the color hasn’t made its way back with him. His right arm is in a cast. Peter’s gaze falls to it, then back to his face, trying to take it in, mind reeling, almost refusing to believe. Wondering if this is another trick, even though Beck has been dead for over a year, and his teammates are all rounded up, the last one shut behind bars months ago. Even though Fury is the one who brought him here, assuring him it’s real. Even though he passed Ms. Potts in the hall, huddled with her new fiancé, whispering about how to tell Morgan.

Even with all that, he can’t quite believe it.  
  
Mr. Stark looks down at his arm, too, smiling wryly. “Yeah, turns out the guys who brought me back didn’t do it quite right,” he explains. “Who would’ve thought a gang of crazed wizards would fuck up? No one saw that coming. Complete plot twist.”  
  
It’s that voice that does it, strain just underneath the joke: the tone he always uses when he’s trying to protect Peter from how hurt he really is. Peter feels something in him swell, disbelief giving way to relief, and suddenly he’s throwing himself into Mr. Stark’s arms, pressing against his neck, whispering, “I missed you, I missed you, I missed you.”  
  
He’d meant to be strong; he’s not the one lying in a hospital bed, he’s not the one who should need comfort. But when Mr. Stark laughs and brings his good arm around his back, replying, “Missed you, too, kid,” it’s all he can do not to cry.

5.

It takes six months for Mr. Stark to recover enough to start fighting again, but when he does, he’s welcomed back to the team with open arms. Not that the Avengers do much fighting together these days. There hasn’t been a threat big enough to require more than a few heroes at a time in years.  
  
But then: an invader with giant robots, a fight in Tokyo, Mr. Stark hit by a laser he wasn’t ready for. Peter watches him go down, falling far too many stories. He tries to get to him, throws a web his way in a desperate attempt to catch him, but a robot swats him in the wrong direction; he can’t stop it, can’t do anything but stare as Iron Man crashes to the ground with a thud Peter swears he can hear through the clamor of the battle.  
  
“Mr. Stark? Mr. Stark, are you okay?” he asks through their private comms channel.  
  
“Ummm,” comes the response. Not really a word, but not quite just a groan. Peter almost sobs in relief.  
  
“Just hold tight, I’m almost there.” No one else seems to have noticed he’s down, and Peter is the closest anyway. Dodging and ducking, he swings his way to where the gold and red of the Iron Man suit glints in the sun, unmoving.  
  
What he finds when he gets there is enough to make the world go sideways. Mr. Stark is alive, the suit protecting him from what should have been a deadly fall, but the laser cut straight through it, burning a gash through his side and across his chest. There’s blood everywhere; on his skin, on the ground, on the suit.  
  
“Hey, Mr. Stark?” Peter asks.  
  
The faceplate of the Iron Man suit flips up, revealing eyes that are only half open, breaths that come labored. “Kid?”  
  
Peter rips off his own mask. “Yeah, it’s me, Mr. Stark. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.”  
  
But there’s not a lot he can actually do, other than radio for help and use his antiseptic webbing—one of the things they invented together, years ago; his mind supplies a skittering memory of Mr. Stark’s impressed smile when Peter proposed the idea—to close up the wound while they wait. It doesn’t take long until Peter’s hands are covered in Mr. Stark’s blood, too.  
  
“You’re okay,” Peter tells him, desperate for it to be true. “You’re okay, you’re going to be okay.” Suddenly, emotions pounding too hard and fast to think about what he’s doing, he leans forward and kisses Mr. Stark’s cheek. “You have to be okay, sir,” he whispers. “I can’t lose you again. Please?”

+1

In the end it was really Doctor Strange who saved Mr. Stark, creating a portal to a hospital, using magic to keep him alive until his pretty surgeon friend could do the rest.  
  
Peter wants to apologize for being useless, and also for crossing a boundary, completely inappropriate, but when he tries to bring it up, Mr. Stark’s eyes go soft and he cuts him off. “I’m glad you were there, Peter. Your voice...it helped. It gave me something to hold on to.”  
  
It’s unexpectedly vulnerable, and hearing Mr. Stark actually use his name sends a thrill down Peter’s spine. The moment is broken when Mr. Stark makes a joke about how unfortunate it is that he now owes Gandalf, but it sticks with Peter, lingering in the back of his mind.  
  
Maybe that’s why the next time Mr. Stark injures himself in the lab—just a cut across his hand, but enough to make him hiss in pain—Peter finds the courage to say, “Let me help?”  
  
To his surprise, Mr. Stark considers him for a moment and then nods, extending the hand. Peter grabs the First Aid kit and gets to work, cleaning the wound, trying to ignore that he can feel his heart pounding up his throat. What he can’t ignore is the way Mr. Stark’s breathing quickens when Peter’s fingers brush across his palm, pressing a Band-Aid in place.  
  
Suddenly, with a boldness he regrets as soon as the words are out of his mouth, Peter says, “Kiss to make it better?”  
  
Mr. Stark raises his eyebrows. But his fingers close around Peter’s hand, keeping him in place. “What, am I five?”  
  
“Not—” Peter swallows, gathering the courage to finish what he started. “Not the kind of kiss I had in mind.”  
  
“Well, in that case.” Mr. Stark tugs him closer. “Yeah, kid, kiss to make it better.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, feedback is loved.


End file.
